


like you mean it

by em_the_gem



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (i tried something new in writing them this way pls don't hate me), M/M, Summer Romance, angsty thoughts on sexuality, lapslock, mature content if you squint, morally complex and dubious characters, this is a break-up fic but like a hopeful one, this turned into a rant about fleeting romances i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-29 19:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20230342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_the_gem/pseuds/em_the_gem
Summary: summer romances are a fleeting thing. alec and magnus travel europe, and like all soulmates, fall in love





	like you mean it

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'like you mean it' by ruelle

it wasn’t supposed to be this easy, alec muses now that it’s over. it’s never supposed to be this easy when you’ve fallen in love and when you’ve spent the good part of three months tangled up together in dark motels in europe, but life is strange and there really are no rules when it comes to love. 

breaking up shouldn’t be this easy, but he supposes that when it’s a mutual decision then it’s fine, then it is what it is and then there’s no reason to mull over it more than necessary. right? then why does it hurt? why does it hurt when he thinks back on the time they’d spent together travelling europe, drinking cheap wine, eating fat cheeses and sweet fruits? why does it hurt when he thinks of magnus’ back pressed against his chest and magnus’ fingers laced with his?

it’d been so easy falling in love with him and all it had taken was a train from budapest to belgrade, fields of sunflowers on both sides of their seats and a loud group of young italian soccer players occupying the rest of the wagon they were in. it had been so easy to scout the other out, the only other english speaking person and the only other travelling alone. it had been so, so easy falling in love so of course it was only rational that it had been so, so easy falling out of love again.

back when they’d met, it had been easy for magnus to ask “is this seat taken?” when the soccer team had gotten too rowdy around magnus’ area (because yes, alec had noticed him immediately how could he not?) and in return it had been so easy for alec to shake his head and make space for him on the seat next to him.

they’d been quiet for a while, had watched the landscape turn from sunflowers to fields of green and back to sunflowers again before they’d turned to look at each other again, like they knew what the other was thinking.

“i’m magnus,” magnus had said.

“i’m alec,” alec had said, and when they shook hands alec was already a little bit in love.

***

they were both travelling alone, both in europe to escape their lives in the states for a bit, but they were also both needy for company. and company they found in each other, and it didn’t take them long to agree to continue their solo travelling, together.

as a photographer, magnus had seen much of the world but not quite the way that alec saw the world. and as a historian, alec knew a lot about the world but he hadn’t quite understood it the way magnus had.

they shared stories and experiences over plates of local meats and cheeses, over glasses of local wine and spirits. they met the local people, learned local phrases and learned a lot about love. love between a mother and a daughter who’d been separated for years because the daughter moved to the city of sofia to pursue her dreams, and had left the mother in their village in the mountains, only to come visit her when local festivities allowed it. love in a local community that had fled the big cities because of injustices but somehow had managed to go self-sufficient in the mountains of greece.

they learned a lot about the love that was growing between the two of them, too, the love that had grown like vines and had allowed itself to settle in between their unspoken words and their lingering glances at each other when then sunset illuminated the earth for the last time of the day before the moon rose and took over.

it had been unspoken when it happened, one night, a month after they’d met and they were both supposed to be asleep on the floor in a hut of a hospitable lady in the mountains of tuscany. they’d spent a month travelling eastern europe, getting fat on foods and wines and now they were on their way to western europe, to a society resembling the one they were a bit more familiar with, and somehow that felt like a step towards the end.

so maybe that's why they had leaned over to the other, met in the middle, and kissed each other for the first time. maybe it was the feeling, that their trip was ending, that made them desperate to do something about the tension that’d been building between them since day one. maybe it was the moon flitting in between the shutters, drawing them together like two tides. or maybe it was simply inevitable that they would end up like this.

like this: warm breaths and wet mouths, quietly pressing in and quietly pressing closer, the darkness so full of warmth and magic between them that it pulls the breath from them and leaves them heaving in the moonlight, desperate to get closer.

and closer they get. the next day they take the train to genoa and they hold hands as they watch the landscape in all its mountainous glory with magnus’ head resting on alec’s shoulder. they doze in and out of sleep but their hands stay laced together. 

that night they get close, closer than ever before and they whisper and whimper until all they can do is move against and with each other while the moon makes its way across the night sky.

and when the sun peeks her first glance across the sea, they lie tangled up in sheets and sweat and each other, just the way they both wanted, and it’s with magnus’ fingers carding through the hair on alec’s chest that alec dares speak the words he’s been thinking for a month. he says “do you believe in love at first sight?”

and magnus, who has seen much of the world through a camera lens and knows that in certain cases you must be quick on the shutter, leans up on one arm and looks at alec’s sun kissed face. smiles and says, “when i look at you, i do.” 

time seemed to speed up around them as they travelled southern france, northern spain and then up to northern france just at the border of germany before they continued to paris where they spent many days walking around, hand in hand, just enjoying each other in the city of love, a city that seemed to be made just for them. 

their trip was ending, they both knew it was coming to an end and alec could see it in the eyes of magnus, that the closer they got to their final destination on london, the less love and joy he found searching them. 

they hadn’t talked about it, alec didn’t know how to breach the subject, until one night on the train from paris to london, he looked at magnus and took his hand.

“what happens now?” he asked.

“we go to london,” magnus had said and looked out the window again.

“what happens after?” alec presses on, frowning because suddenly he’s worried.

“we go home.”

that night they have their first fight, and it’s a little embarrassing and humiliating when they call from the reception about noise complaints. so they take their anger and frustration out otherwise and end up on their backs in the soft bed a while later.

alec reaches his hand out and drags magnus’ to his chest where his heart beats rapidly, desperately. 

“i want to keep seeing you when we get to new york, we can make it work,” he assures magnus who keeps staring at the ceiling, too afraid to meet alec’s eyes, too afraid he’ll see his fear mirrored. 

“we can make it work,” magnus says, as uncertainty settles in the pit of his stomach.

so they go back to new york, they go home. they leave their adventures in europe behind them and alec’s determined to make it work, to love magnus just the same as he did in greece, in italy, in france. he’s as determined as ever before and with magnus’ hand in his on the plane, for all 8 hours, it feels possible to accomplish.

it takes 2 months for the spell to break. magnus secretly blames it on alec’s work and alec secretly blames it on magnus’ reluctance to make it work. and maybe they’re both right in a way.

because alec is a professor in history at NYU, the youngest and brightest in his field, and that didn’t come without hard work and long hours at his office or the campus library, researching and working on his doctorate.

but the problem hadn’t been alec’s long hours at the university, because magnus had made an effort at meeting him for lunch, dinner and coffee breaks in between. 

no, the problem had been alec’s coworkers, old, white and male, dominating the field and dominating the social functions they’d gone to together where the men had looked down upon the women attending like this was the 1960’s. but sometimes it’s like that in the history field, sometimes you get stuck in time while the world continues on. 

magnus had confronted alec every time they’d spent time with them, and after alec had refused to hold magnus’ hand at one of the functions, he’d snapped.

“what am i to you? to them? am i just a _ friend _?” magnus spat when they were in the comfort of magnus’ own apartment.

sighing and rubbing his forehead like he was tired, alec had said in a tone that clearly signaled he didn’t want to be having this conversation right now, “magnus, you don’t understand…”

“no, you’re right i don’t!” his eyes were crackling fire, crackling anger as he paced the floor. “i can’t _ believe _you!” alec understood, after all he’d refused to hold magnus’ hand in public and magnus didn’t know the reason why.

“i’m not out to them magnus! i’m not as comfortable around other people as you are,” alec had said and that had calmed magnus down a little. this was personal, not something they’d discussed before.

they hadn’t talked about it in europe because it hadn’t seemed to matter. alec was gay and magnus was bi, and they were into each other and they were maybe a little in love with each other, so what did it matter who they were when they _ weren’t _in europe?

they were treading uncharted territory between them, and they didn’t know how to move on from here. so magnus took alec’s hand in an act of surrender and pulled him close.

“i didn’t know, i’m sorry.”

and for a little while thereafter things were… okay. they weren’t great like they had been in europe where they’d quickly found a rhythm and routine for everyday. but nothing was like europe anymore, because europe was in the past and new york was their present.

alec meets magnus’ artist friends and feels uncomfortable the entire night when they go out clubbing in places alec’s never been and talk about people alec’s never heard of before. and they’re so queer, and magnus is so comfortable in his surroundings that alec suddenly feels like he’s holding magnus back whenever he brings him to university functions that are beneficial for alec but boring for magnus.

and maybe he should have felt bad for leaving magnus with his friends that night, claiming he had a headache and _ no, i’ll be fine just stay with your friends, i’ll call you tomorrow _, and he’d gone home to cry himself to sleep for the first time since coming to terms with his sexuality back in high school.

he’d cried thinking about what he life could have been had he not been okay with keeping his sexuality a private part of him, and not an outspoken thing like it was for magnus. he was happy for magnus and his friends for having found a community that they felt comfortable in, but for alec he’d learned to find comfort in texts and books about past wars and events that had shaped the world today. 

the next morning alec called magnus and invited him over for lunch. and they’d talked. really talked, for what felt like the first time ever for the two of them.

alec tells magnus that he doesn’t feel comfortable in their relationship, that it has nothing to do with magnus, he still cares greatly for him, he just doesn’t feel the spark anymore, doesn't feel excited, had stopped feeling excited probably the moment they touched down in newark back in august.

magnus tells alec he stopped putting effort into their relationship when alec told him he had no plans on coming out to his coworkers any time soon. alec has full understanding for that and feels sorry for trapping him in a relationship he didn’t want to be in. magnus tells him not to be dumb. alec smiles a little at that, because when all is said and done magnus has been a great companion and great company. a great sparring partner for his thesis, a great sex partner (at this magnus laughs heartily) and a great travel partner.

at the mention of europe they both go quiet. europe means something to them both, means love and means summer days and endless summer nights where love was a flower between them. now that flower has wilted and is dying out, they’d forgotten to nurture it and they’d let it die. they’d taken something from its native habitat and moved it across the world and somewhere along the way it had died out.

alec is sad when he hugs magnus goodbye, their hug lingering and tight, but it also felt right in some twisted way. _ he should have loved me like he’d meant it _, he selfishly thinks before mentally kicking himself for thinking so. he lets magnus go who in turns cups his face and kisses him chastely for the last time.

they agree that love is a complex thing, and with a promise of not becoming strangers and always having europe, magnus leaves alec’s apartment for the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are highly appreciated! 
> 
> holla at me if you need soothing words to calm your soul, find me on [tumblr](http://kaarlighed.tumblr.com)  



End file.
